Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov
Denise Levertovwas a British-born American poet...
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth24 October 1923
june growing want
In June the bush we call alder was heavy, listless, its leaves studded with galls, growing wherever we didn't want it.
heart eye dark
In the dark I rest, unready for the light which dawns day after day, eager to be shared. Black silk, shelter me. I need more of the night before I open eyes and heart to illumination. I must still grow in the dark like a root not ready, not ready at all.
utopian quickness
Nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have.
dream flesh arms
my pleasure was in the strength of my back, in my noble shoulders, the cool smooth flesh cylinders of my arms.
lying air knowing
The AvowalAs swimmers dareto lie face to the skyand water bears them,as hawks rest upon airand air sustains them;so would I learn to attain freefall, and floatinto Creator Spirit's deep embrace,knowing no effort earnsthat all-surrounding grace.
turns marvelous guise
Marvelous Truth, confront us at every turn, in every guise.
elements kind poet
The poem has a social effect of some kind whether or not the poet wills it to have. It has a kenetic force, it sets in motion...elements in the reader that would otherwise remain stagnant.
love distance long
Love is a landscape the long mountains define but don't shut off from the unseeable distance.
truth light mind
I learn to affirm Truth's light at strange turns of the mind's road, wrong turns that lead over the border into wonder....
memories offering clothes
Days pass when I forget the mystery. Problems insoluble and problems offering their own ignored solutions jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing their colored clothes; caps and bells. And then once more the quiet mystery is present to me, the throng's clamor recedes: the mystery that there is anything, anything at all, let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything, rather than void: and that, 0 Lord, Creator, Hallowed one, You still, hour by hour sustain it.
life mistake spring
Do you mistake me? I am speaking of living, of moving from one moment into the next, and into the one after, breathing death in the spring air....
men joy solitude
A blind man. I can stare at him ashamed, shameless. Or does he know it? No, he is in a great solitude. O, strange joy, to gaze my fill at a stranger's face. No, my thirst is greater than before.